uraj Atlas was at the birth of the Czech transportation startup, Liftago, and his mission to improve the way people get around in the cities continued in his following career step. To take mobility to the next level, he introduced Mileus — a platform that combines taxi services with public transport two years ago. Before the outbreak of the pandemic last year, the startup received ten million Czech crowns from investors, and another million last week.
Although the corona outbreak delayed initial plans to launch the service, Mileus has now announced its first launch in Bratislava in cooperation with Hopin, the largest Slovak ride-hail app, which is used by over 120,000 customers every month.
Mileus seeks to offer a private car commuting alternative by connecting ride-hailing with public transport. People can have the best of public transport in city centers where connections run frequently and it’s often faster than car due to rush-hour congestion.
To complement this, in the outskirts of cities, where there are fewer connections, customers can have a taxi waiting for them directly at the stop and take them to their final destination. This is how Mileus wants to encourage people to leave their private cars at home and make our cities less congested with traffic.
“We can guarantee passengers can always get home from the centre of Bratislava quickly and comfortably with the help of combined transport, so they can leave their own car at home in the morning. This prevents traffic jams and parking problems. Plus, the intermodal service is more affordable than just taxi transportation, making it more accessible for a wider group of people,” says Juraj Atlas.
The new intermodality project wants to bring passengers the best of both worlds — the speed of public transport in the city centres and the comfort of a taxi on the last mile, where there are fewer transport services. Taxi operators themselves, such as Hopin, can integrate the solution into their own application, where it is offered to end customers.
“Customers can always have the most beneficial transport solution at their fingertips, be it ride-hailing, bus, or tram. The Hopin app keeps passengers moving, even when others are standing – whether they’re losing time in traffic jams, or delayed by transfers and on the last kilometres,” adds Hopin CEO Richard Lörinz.
While the company has not set any more launch dates, commuters in Prague and other European cities can also expect to see the launch of Mileus in the future as negotiations are currently underway with more potential partners. A recent pilot project with Liftago, the largest Czech ride-hail operator which is increasing its focus on delivery, has shown that intermodality can lead to growth of their taxi business.
“Analysis of Liftago’s operational data with intermodality in Prague suggests it jointly increases the frequency of taxi rides and average revenue per customer by more than 20 per cent. It also shows intermodality improves vehicle utilisation, reduces passenger-less mileage, and thus improves the efficiency of the taxi operators’ fleet,” Mileus added a statement.
This article is a translation of an article published by CzechCrunch, authored by Peter Brejčák.
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